Companies and individuals protect themselves against loss, damage or injury taking out insurance policies. These are contracts against possible future risks.

Important part is proposal form. It must be completed by the firm or person who wants insurance cover. This tells the insurance company what is to be insured, how much the policy is worth and how long it is to run.
If the proposal form contents all necessary information the insurer issues a cover note. The cover note is an agreement, which tells that the goods are covered until the policy is ready.

When the policy is sent, the client is indemnified against loss, damage or injury.
Indemnification means that the insurance company will compensate the client to his original position before the loss or damage.
But the price for client can be depreciated.
If there is a claim then underwriters pay compensation and work out the premium.
So if you insure a stereo for 800 pounds at 25%, you will have to pay 2 pounds per annum for the premium.

There are other types of insurance – fire ins., accident ins….
Fire insurance companies offer three types of insurance policy
- ins. Of home and business premises
- policies which protect the insured person against special factors /flooding…/
- consequential loss insurance, which insures against loss of profit in the period after fire or flooding while for ex. Factory is being rebuilt.

Accidental Insurance
this ins. Covers four areas
- insurance of liability
- property insurance /includes protection against terrorism, explosions…/
- personal accident insurance
- insurance of interest protects, for example publishers against libel /protection against damaging his reputation/

Claims
Companies and individuals make claims for loss, damage by filling in a claims form. This tells the insurance company what has happened. If the insurers accept it, they pay compensation. But they wont pay it if the claimant was negligent /nedbalý/, for example when insuring the same thing twice or gave false info on the proposal form…
The insurer may also offer less money than claimant is asking for. If the claimant disagrees with an amount of money, he can call in an independent assessor /odhadce/. But usually small claims are paid without question.

Lloyds of London
Almost anything can be insured there. Their income represents an income of over 24 mil. pounds and it flows there from all parts of the world.
Lloyds is not an insurance company, but an international insurance market consisting of 260 insurance brokers and more than 20 000 underwriters. They finance the insurance, which means they will pay the claims. Underwriters usually work in syndicates. There are more than 400 syndicates.

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